Thursday, December 20, 2007

I should probably first state that I'm taking these four days before I go to meet my new husband's family for the first time for Christmas, of which I am deathly afraid and extremely nervous, to spend with my grandparents. Around Thanksgiving, we kids (my mom, my gay uncle, and I) found out that my grandmother had bought bus tickets for my other uncle, who hasn't been home for over a decade because she wouldn't let him come home as long as he was an addict, and his girlfriend to come visit after my grandmother, crying, told that uncle that she thought it would be my grandfather's last Christmas and he did say that he'd like to see my grandpa. Now, first of all, no doctors have said anything to that effect. Second of all, it could be my last Christmas. Hell, last Christmas could be my last Christmas if I walk out the door and get hit by a car standing in the driveway. Third of all, she did this without making sure that this uncle could get off work. Fourth of all, she did this without thinking to ask us kids how any of us thought about him coming home for Christmas, kinda last minute, without any amends or anything being made for previous wrongs. (This doesn't really apply to me, as I was too young, but I think does really apply to my other uncle.) So, it could be argued that being here could be awkward. And, as I'm here before my mom and other uncle can come for the holiday, I'm on my own to deal with all this. Ok, ok, fine, fine, fine. Awkward, but I can deal.

About a half hour ago, Gram gets up, just like she did all summer when I was here, because she's slept enough in a regular bed and now must sleep in her chair while "The Closer" plays in the background. "You're STILL up?!?" "Yes, Gram." She smokes a cigarette, then comes up behind me while I"m at the computer. "Tomorrow, will you either stay home with Grandpa while I go to Wal-mart or go for me?" "Well, I was going to go pick up some stuff at Target anyway, but I could just as well go to Walmart. Sure.--------- But Gram, if you want to just get out of the house, it's not like Dave and Christine aren't here. They can't really go anywhere." [They don't have driver's licenses or a car here.] "But they're GUESTS here." Thus ends the conversation.

And I sit here and think. And think. And then I start to get mad. My mom and I worked our asses off all summer trying to care for my (other) uncle and my grandparents. Once he was well enough, my other uncle came out as often as he could to help out with things as well. My mom still works her ass off, coming out here almost every other weekend, to do all the shopping for my grandmother on Saturday, after working a full work week, taking care of the house, making sure that I'm not about to kill myself, and driving the four hours out here (and then back the next day). It's not that I mind doing these errands and it's not that I wasn't going out anyway. It's that this uncle gets a pass on the responsibility that the rest of us have had for half this year, longer if you count the last time my grandfather got sick and was in the hospital for several months after the flu kicked his ass or if you count my grandma's knee replacement surgery or her back surgery, that we were all here for and took care of them for. But that is what family does. That's why you have kids!!!! To take care of you when you are too old to take care of yourself. People start their life with their parents changing their diapers and their parents end their life with them changing their diapers. It's the circle of fucking life. And, the more kids you have, the more that responsibility can be spread out. So just because he's been a deadbeat addict for most of his life and he has finally been allowed to come home for Christmas, he should not be devoid of the same responsibility that the rest of us have shouldered while he was away living/wasting his life. Hell, all the more reason why he SHOULD be helping to do these fucking things. Guest? Guest?!? No, fuck that. He's family and he should be acting like it. And she should be making him. She makes the rest of us.

Oh, and she won't let the rest of us drink because of him. To paraphrase my mother and my other uncle, "How the fuck does she expect us to get through 3-4 days there if we can't fucking drink? That's bullshit!"

Sunday, December 16, 2007

Remeber when we were trying to find this song to put on a CD for me? Half of those fucking CDs didn't even come out because your Dad's CD burner was going out. I think the only one that actually came out right was the Slow Dance CD, which is still one of my favorite mix disks ever. But I was on a youtube streak and found this one so I thought I'd share it with you. You know, I think hearing this song way back then made me realize we'd never make it? Because I'd always want to be the one calling you to come to Boston or Denver or LA and you'd never want to leave home. Kinda funny to look at where we are now, huh?

Please Come To Boston- Dave LogginsPlease come to Boston for the springtimeI'm staying here with some friendsAnd they've got lots of roomYou can sell your paintings on the sidewalkBy a cafçŸ·here I hope to be working soonPlease come to BostonShe said no, boy you come home to me

She said hey ramblin' boy, why don't you settle downBoston ain't your kinda townThere ain't no gold and there ain't nobody like meI'm the number one fan of the man from Tennessee

Please come to Denver to see the snowfallWe'll move up into the mountains so far that we can't be foundThrow I love you echoes down the canyonAnd then lie awake at night til they come back aroundPlease come to DenverShe said no, boy you come home to me

She said hey ramblin' boy, why don't you settle downDenver ain't your kinda townThere ain't no gold and there ain't nobody like meI'm the number one fan of the man from Tennessee

Now this drifter's world goes 'round and 'roundAnd I doubt if it's ever gonna stopAnd of all the dreams I've lost and foundAnd all that I ain't gotI need someone to cling toSomebody I can sing to

Please come to L.A. to live foreverA California life alone is just too hard to LIVEWE'LL live in a house that looks out over the oceanThere's some stars that fell from the sky livin up on a hillPlease come to L.A.She said no, boy you come home to me

She said hey ramblin' boy, why don't you settle downL.A. ain't your kinda townThere ain't no gold and there ain't nobody like meI'm the number one fan of the man from Tennessee

I was reminded of this song when someone else used the title as the title of one of their blog posts and it really made me think of Mon Parrain. Earlier in the week, I was going through some old text messages that I hadn't deleted from my phone and i came upon his last texts to me. They were on November 9th. Ironically, that was also the one month anniversary of my marriage. I suppose I was never really promised anything, persay, but I always felt like he offered the promise that I could have a new and better life if I just hung around long enough to really learn from him. And everytime I think about his complete disappearance from my life, so sudden and without any good-bye, I'm reminded of two very contradictory things that he often said to me. One was that he didn't just up and leave his friends, but the other one was that everyone should feel like they are free to just walk away from a person or a situation if it was either in that person's best interest or their own best interests, without anything more being done or said. I have to assume that he did the latter.What's really poignant to me in this song is how she finally responds to the people around her, telling them what she has finally figured out. I have the same experience. There are things that my husband knew I wanted to do with Mon Parrain, things that were especially special to Mon Parrain and I. When I try casually to make plans to do those things with my husband, my husband always brings up "But what about Mon Parrain?", as if he's defending Mon Parrain, or vicariously offended for Mon Parrain that I would bring up doing this thing with him instead. And I finally just had to tell my husband that he's not coming back, that there is no Arizona. I'm not really sure if it was harder for me to have to put that into words for the first time or harder for my husband to realize what that meant to me, how that broke my heart. But, here's the song and the youtube. It's a good song, even though it's going to make me cry for the second time tonight.There Is No Arizona- Jamie O'Nealhttp://youtube.com/watch?v=22tktN87ASkHe promised her a new and better life, out in ArizonaUnderneath the blue never ending sky, swore that he was gonnaGet things in order, he'd send for herWhen he left her behind, it never crossed her mind

There is no ArizonaNo Painted Desert, no SedonaIf there was a Grand CanyonShe could fill it up with the lies he's told herBut they don't exist, those dreams he sold herShe'll wake up and findThere is no Arizona

She got a postcard with no return address, postmarked TombstoneIt said "I don't know where I'm goin' next but when I doI'll let you know"May, June, July, she wonders whyShe's still waiting, she'll keep waiting 'cause

There is no ArizonaNo Painted Desert, no SedonaIf there was a Grand CanyonShe could fill it up with the lies he's told herBut they don't exist, those dreams he sold herShe'll wake up and findThere is no Arizona

Each day the sun sets into the westHer heart sinks lower in her chest andFriends keep asking when she's goingFinally she tells them don't you know

There is no ArizonaNo Painted Desert, no SedonaIf there was a Grand CanyonShe could fill it up with the lies he's told herBut they don't exist, those dreams he sold herShe'll wake up and findThere is no Arizona

So I’m sitting here, flipping through channels on this Saturday night, just managing to come out of the funk that’s kept me in bed for the past three days, and I stumble upon his latest Austin City Limits performance, which is mostly just stuff from his latest album Continuum. Now, I love John Mayer but this probably wasn’t be best night to get me all introspective and shit. I probably should have picked out a big-budget movie from the box of cloned DVDs that I haven’t watched yet and seen some shit blown up. But as soon as I hit on him singing “Belief”, I knew that I had to write a blog post. For the past few weeks, I’ve been thinking that I should write something for my blogs but I couldn’t really come up with anything ‘appropriate’ to write. I’m sure regular readers of my blog are wondering what I might write that I would consider inappropriate, but it isn’t really about me. A great deal of it is about other people, people that I don’t want to hurt or endanger by writing my truths and my feelings.

But listening to him sing “Belief” brought up something that I probably should write about, something that I might be in a unique position to write about, though I don’t claim that my position is right or wrong-it’s simply mine.

While I’ve always had a passing interest in politics and a passing idea of what was going on in this country and a slight idea about things in the rest of the world, I started paying more attention to the bigger picture (i.e. things other than just those issues that directly effected me and mine) after 9/11, though mostly because of Sir’s interest in those things. It brought me another thing with which I could discuss with Sir in a semi-intellectual manner. Fortunately, this interest in politics didn’t go away when Sir and I broke up. Actually, it allowed me to more freely express and pursue my political ideas, which were and are much more liberal than Sir’s are.

But it is in this context that I assessed and constantly reassessed my beliefs and feelings about the current Iraq War. But no matter how much information I have read, I always feel like I’m coming up short. I feel like I still don’t have enough information to make an informed decision. In my mind, I would think that any leader and/or politician without an agenda might feel the same, though they do probably have some information not available to the general public. From the beginning, I really didn’t know if I felt the United States (and our Coalition of the Willing) should start a war in Iraq. And as we have not found any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and fighting continues in Iraq, which gets closer and closer to civil war, it becomes harder and harder to support this particular war. And, while it has never been one of my favorite songs on the Continuum album, I think that “Belief” does bring out that sort of ambivalence about the war, about anything that is supported by ‘belief’ because everyone believes in something and no one is just going to change their mind because someone else yells louder. In the song, belief is not necessarily good or bad: “Belief is a beautiful armor/ But makes for the heaviest sword.”But what really gets to me, especially now, comes at the end of the song. “We're never gonna win the world/ We're never gonna stop the war/ We're never gonna beat this/ If belief is what we're fighting for//What puts a hundred thousand children in the sand?/ Belief can/ Belief can/ What puts the folded flag inside his mother's hand?/ Belief can/ Belief can.” On the one hand, I recognize that ‘the war’, especially what radio commentator Michael Savage would call the War on Islamofascism, or hell, any fight that is based on beliefs, will never truly be won. But I also don’t think that our politicians keep us involved in two wars overseas that aren’t going very well because they believe it is the right thing to do or because they believe that they are making the world a better place. Personally I believe that the only things they consider are their political futures, their bank accounts and the bank accounts of their friends.

And, despite feeling this for quite awhile, despite knowing that this war was/is killing children, not only Iraqi and Afgani children in the war zones, but also our children, the 18 year old boy- and girl-soldiers that we are sending to do our dirty work, despite knowing that pretty much everyday at least one U.S. mother loses a child to this war, I never really cared. I have to admit that I was just as ambivalent to it as everyone else. The first song on and the first single from Mayer’s Continuum is “Waiting for the World to Change”. In it, he discusses how people of his generation are viewed as uninvolved but he tries to give reasons for this, saying that people of his generation, and I think people of my generation as well, feel disempowered. Even my mom identifies with the lines “And when you trust your television/ What you get is what you got/ Cause when they own the information, oh/ They can bend it all they want.”

So, why do I care now? Why do I feel like I should write about my ambivalence now? Because now I’m a soldier’s wife. I’m the wife of a soldier who is leaving for Iraq in less than a month. That child buried in the sand would be my husband, who’s never really grown up, who has a foot-locker full of Star Wars figures. That folded flag would be in my hands. The night I met him, he told me that he would be shipping out in January, so I knew from the start of our relationship. But it wasn’t until a few nights after we were married that I ever knew how he felt about the war he was going to fight or the man who was ordering him to fight it. As a pinko, liberal, queer, feminist, etc, etc, I never got into a discussion with this man who I was having amazing sex with about his political beliefs, mostly because I was afraid of finding out that he was a hardcore neoconservative. And I didn’t want him to think that I didn’t support him or what he was going to do, because I do support him. I have a great deal of respect for him, for any and all men and women who choose to fight for our country, especially because I know it is something that I could not do, for many reasons. Imagine my surprise when my new husband revealed that he did not believe in this war and that he doesn’t like his Commander-in-Chief, but that he asked for this deployment because his military brothers and sisters were out there fighting and he should be as well. And, for as hard as it is sometimes, I will do everything and anything in my power to support him as he is fighting.

But that doesn’t mean that I think we should just continue to fight, ad infinitum, in Iraq, especially as it seems that nothing is getting better, but I don’t have any answers. Should we “cut-and-run”? Should we put even more of our soldiers there to stabilize the region? I don’t have these answers. I’m just the wife of a soldier who is proud of how well-trained he is but would be much happier if he never had to use that training.

[Oh, and why I titled this “Fucking John Mayer” is because I started this right after he sang one of those songs that I can never hear without crying- “Stop This Train”. I have a previous post with this song in it, but no matter what I’m going through, it speaks to something in my life at that point. I could never sing this song in concert. Hell, he didn’t seem like he could make it through the song without a few tears. I suppose for me, I have a great deal of reasons why I would like to “stop this train” and keep things like they are. And so I started crying. Then, he followed it up with the other song on Continuum which makes me cry a good deal of the time, “Gravity”. So, fucking John Mayer: making me cry! Oh, but I love him so!]

Thursday, November 08, 2007

I'm sure all my regular readers are waiting in breathless anticipation for part three of the story of how I got married. But I just haven't really had the heart to write to it. I know I should be excited to tell of our adventurous drive out to Nevada and the wonderful heady time we had getting married and just being in love in that crazy desert city. It should be one of the easiest stories to tell, full of happiness and fulfillment.

But real life doesn't work out that way, right? We were married on Tuesday. On Saturday, after returning to my house, my new husband drove out to pick up some of his stuff from his now-former home at the crazy communal house in the nearby college town. I decided to stay at home, avoid the possible drama. Just like me, before we were married, he was not monogamous, had a "friends with benefits" relationship. And he had not really ended the relationship before we ran off to Vegas. Before he returned to the house, he called me. "Well, I have bad news and just kinda bad news. The kinda bad news is that you might have to come get my stuff without me, while I'm away in training, because they don't know if they want the liability of having my stuff here." "Ok. No problem. My dad and I can do that if we need to. What's the really bad news?" "K says she's pregnant."

It's not anyone's fault really. As my mom is fond of saying about unintended pregnancies, shit happens. All it takes is one time without birth control or a missed pill or a broken condom and *poof* pregnancy. There was no unfaithfulness. There was no lying. Though he hasn't said it, I know that he is just as scared as any other guy who finds out that he is about to become a dad, even if he wants children. As for her.... how can I be angry at another young woman who is scared and alone carrying the child of someone who is not only married to someone else, but who is leaving the country in a few months and, Goddess forbid, might not come back?

But this is no way to start a marriage. It was crazy enough to run off to marry a man who would be leaving to train to fight out of country for a year less than a week after the wedding. But knowing that while he is out of country, less than an hour away his child is gestating in the body of another woman, to be born without him there to see it....it sometimes feels like too much. Definately too much to handle and write a celebratory post about my nuptials.

Sunday, October 28, 2007

I know most guys, especially BT can't understand this, but sometimes I just need to be mad, or whatever emotion it is that I'm experiencing, for awhile. You can't always make it "better." And sometimes you shouldn't. Just let it ride. And I'll come back around.

I just want to be mad for awhile- Terri ClarkLast night we went to bed not talkin','Cause we'd already said too much.I faced the wall, you faced the window.Bound and determined not to touch.We've been married seven years now.Sometimes it feels like 21.I'm still mad at you this mornin'.Coffee's ready if you want some.I've been up since five, thinkin' bout me and you.And I've got to tell you the conclusion I've come to.

I'll never leave, I'll never stray.My love for you will never change.But I ain't ready to make up.We'll get around to that.I think I'm right, I think you're wrong.I'll prob'ly give in before long.Please don't make me smile.I just wanna be mad for a while.

Well, now you might as well forget it.Don't run your fingers through my hair.Yeah, that's right, I'm bein' stubborn.No, I don't wanna go back upstairs.I'm gonna leave for work without a goodbye kiss.But as I'm drivin' off, just remember this.

I'll never leave, I'll never stray.My love for you will never change.But I ain't ready to make up.We'll get around to that.I think I'm right, I think you're wrong.I'll prob'ly give in before long.Please don't make me smile.I just wanna be mad for a while.

I'll never leave, I'll never stray.My love for you will never change.But I ain't ready to make up.We'll get around to that.I think I'm right, I think you're wrong.I'll prob'ly give in before long.Please don't make me smile.I just wanna be mad for a while.I just wanna be mad for a while.I just wanna be mad for a while.I just wanna be mad for a while.

Monday, October 22, 2007

I blame Jason Aldean. Yep, I'm going to lay the blame squarely at the feet of a country singer and his song named after another, slightly more famous country singer. On our way back home from St Louis, just as we were making this sharp entrance onto one highway from another, we heard the song "Johnny Cash"--- "Quit my job flipped off the boss took my name of the payroll.(I outta here man) Picked up my cell rang my baby's bell said I'm three miles from home. I said sugar why don't you put on that sundress I like so much, Wait out by the road I'm comin' to pick you up. (whoa) Throw your suitcase in the back, (whoa) Done gassed up the pontiac, (whoa) Blastin' out to Johnny Cash, headin' for the highway, Baby we ain't ever comin' back.It's four hundred and sixty seven miles to the outskirts of Las Vegas. What do you say we go get married by a preacher man that looks like Elvis. (yeah momma) Sugar don't you worry bout tellin' your momma goodbye, We'll send her a souvenier postcard from the wild side. (whoa) Throw your suitcase in the back, (whoa) Done gassed up the pontiac, (whoa) Blastin' out to Johnny Cash, headin' for the highway, Baby we ain't ever comin' back." When he sang the part about going to Vegas to get married, BT and I just looked at each other, smiled, and laughed. We laughed then, but I think it planted the seeds for what we would do later that night.

Once we were back at my house, I was supposed to just be taking him back to the house where he stayed in Local College Town. But I wasn't feeling entirely well and he wanted to copy a DVD or two before he left. Plus, I just didn't want to not be with him. So, we hung out around my house, cuddling and talking for hours. Finally, one of us, I don't think either of us can remember which, brought up flying to Vegas. I think he joked that he had the time and I joked that I had the money so we checked online plane ticket prices. But it was just a joke. Wasn't it?

Of course, none of the flights left until 6am the next morning. So, on a lark, we checked Mapquest to see how long it would take to get to there by car. And it said that it was only 19 hours from my house to Vegas. Only 19 hours. It didn't really seem that long. And suddenly, we were both even more giddy, smiling, and actually thinking about driving to Las Vegas that night to get married.

Wait, wait, wait---What are we doing? What am I doing? BT was standing there, grinning from ear to ear, and very clearly ready to go as soon as I said the word. This was all happening too fast. I had to take a step back. I had to get a second opinion. As Mon Parrain was still unreachable, out of country on a business trip, I settled for the next best thing, the very logical, never-rush-into-anything Sir.

I talked to Sir for about an hour. I told him all about what had happened over the weekend in St Louis, about the engagement. He had always said that he would never let me do something incredibly stupid that I couldn't come back from. I expected it would be the same in this instance. And, of course, he came at me with every logical, smart reason why I shouldn't run off to Vegas. Then, just as I was about to let him go for the night, knowing that the smart, wise, reasonable decision would be to wait, to not go to Vegas, I stole something that I'd heard BT say earlier, "It's just that he is the first person I've been with where I don't feel like I have to be someone else." Sir sighed into the phone, "Well, YOU would run off to get Vegas and get married."

Even though that pretty much made up my mind, I still had to spend another hour or so laying in BT's arms, gathering the courage, before I agreed to leave. He was still all smiles but no pressure, probably because he knew I would agree eventually. At one point, I remember telling him that I was just wondering what would happen if I called his bluff. His answer? "But I'm not bluffing." Finally, I looked BT in the eye and said, "Ok, let's go." While I was taking one last bathroom break before hitting the road, BT took it upon himself to empty my suitcase from the weekend, so I could pack new, clean clothes for the trip. I packed the bag as hurriedly as he had unpacked it for me. He said we didn't need to stop off at his place for more clothes for him. And with that, we were off.

Well, almost. Before we even made it to the highway, we were stopped by a cop. As I waited for the officer to come to my door, all I could think was, "This is it. Somehow my mom knows what we are planning on doing and she called the cops to stop us. Sir probably called her. If not, this is at least one really bad omen." The officer explained that he had stopped me because the light above my license plate was out. As he took my license and insurance information from me, he asked the typical cop question, "Where are you guys going tonight?" I figured it wouldn't hurt to tell him the truth. "We're going to Vegas to get married," I sighed. "Really?" "Yep." "That's awesome. That's so awesome. Well, I'm just going to run your license and then you guys can be on your way. That's just so awesome."

As the cop went back to his cruiser to run my driver's license, I stared at BT in disbelief. Instead of the thorough lashing I thought I would get from the cop, not to mention the speeding ticket I had been sure I was in for, he had been truly psyched about the whole thing. We both had to laugh. It was a good omen after all. Without a ticket or even an official warning, though with quite a few more "awesomes", the cop returned my license and sent us on our way.

And that's all for tonight children. I'll pick up where I left off once I've slept off this awful weekend.

Sunday, October 21, 2007

This weekend was spent at my grandparents' house. The last time I was there, I was blissfully happy and standing next to the man who would be my husband, the man who is now hundreds of miles away. And we had spent the night before at a hotel, not at my grandparents' house. This weekend was really the first weekend in a while that my family was back to its normal routine and I was alone, as per usual, though, with my grandfather the way he is now, things are far from normal. I don't think they'll ever be "normal" again. Or maybe this is just the new normal. As I was getting my shower, all I could think of was this song. I miss my husband. I miss my grandpa. I miss things being like they should be.

sunday morning- ani difrancosunday morningslow beats seethingthrough the screens in the open windowseggs fryinglegs shakingafter we stayed lying so long in bedsunday morningboth of us readingand looking up occasionallylooking up occasionally

sunday morningyou're doing your thingand i am doing minespeaking words more a formalitycuz we can feel we are of one mindsunday morningsheets still warmkitties swarming around our feetlife comes easyyour sweet companymaking it so complete

of all the monday through fridayswe joined the crusadeof all the saturday nights in which we were madeof all the exorcisms i've done with your ghostsstill it's sunday morning i miss you the most

Saturday, October 20, 2007

Part 1: St. Louis and TattoosAs most people know by now, I got married Tuesday, October 9th, in Las Vegas, Nevada. It was a very sudden decision, though I think, obviously, that it was the right one. Ever since I left to get married, I have wanted to write the blog entries that would explain what had happened in my life to get me to a place where I would run off to Vegas with a man (yes, a MAN) that I’d only known for two months to get married. Some explanation other than just being crazy.

If I said it started with the trip to St Louis, I’d probably be lying. During the first weekend I spent with Boy Toy, I SAW us getting married before he deployed for Iraq. Intuition isn’t quite the right word, but it is the first one that comes to mind. I can even picture in my mind’s eye where we were when I knew it. But from that moment on, I tried to do everything I could to not give in to that idea. I tried not to act at all girlfriend-y, tried not to call very much, and I saw plenty of other people, all of which he knew about. But he still wanted to make it more serious than we had planned, by asking me to start dating seriously before he deployed, which wasn’t part of his plan, or mine.

Then, I really overstepped. The Sunday before the trip, I had a serious depressive episode. Boy Toy was back in College Town, packing up all his stuff so that he’d be ready to leave for training. I called him to “say good-bye”, but I also told him that I loved him. I put on it the caveat that I didn’t expect him to feel the same, much less say anything back. And he didn’t say it back, just that he did care for me and that he didn’t want this to be the end of anything. I found out later that he had his own intuition. He felt that I would be fine in the end and that the only thing he could really do to help me was to put a protection spell on me and continue with his packing.

Basically, this brings us up to speed for the trip to St Louis. While BT and I were putting bags in the car, he told me that he knew he would say what I had said (“I love you”) soon, but that he just didn’t want to say it without fully meaning it, etc, etc. I sorta laughed it off, telling him that he really shouldn’t worry about saying anything at anytime. But we were barely out of the metro area before he whispered “I love you” in my ear as we cuddled in the backseat while my poor mother drove.

That was the start of the back and forth that continued all weekend. One of us would put something out there that we had been afraid of telling the other, only to find that, not only did the other person share that feeling, but that the other person wanted to take it a step farther. One example involves the tattoos that we ended up getting. Friday night in the car, BT said that he wanted to get me something with the emblem of a crow on it, as a symbol of protection, a symbol of constant return even beyond death. That we would return to each other no matter what. I thought it was really sweet. As we went to sleep that night, I asked him where would be the best place to get a tattoo of protection, thinking specifically of getting a crow. His answer was the back because you can’t watch it yourself. Saturday morning when I told him about my desire to get it as a tattoo on my back, he jumped at the idea to find designs from the internet when we got to my grandma’s later that day. When he brought me the pictures he’d printed from online, he even went a step farther, asking what I would think of putting a heartogram in the center of the crow design, especially as he was thinking of getting a heartogram as well. I could see he was testing something with it. So I raised him, asking him what he thought about me getting the head colored in green, for his eyes. We both got our tats together that night.

It was the same with most things over the weekend, which is how we went from planning on seriously dating when he got back to moving in together to getting married in December when he was home on Christmas Exodus before he deploys. He even did the whole proposal thing on his knees in front of my family on Sunday morning before we left St. Louis. And, despite the fact that my mom barely talked to us the whole trip back, we were all smiles and lovey-dovey-ness.

Tuesday, October 02, 2007

When I saw this diagram on one of the feminist blogs that I visit regularly, I thought it would be a perfect way as a writer to make decisions, if you are only thinking about obtaining more experiences to draw from for your writing.

But it can sometimes get you into trouble. Or at least slightly weird situations.

Like getting stood-up on a Friday night by a guy you met on the internet who claimed to have been forced into being bi after being raped by a guy on an overnight train, in a story strangelyreminiscent of one featured in the advice column Savage Love several months ago.

Like being 25 and in a car parked in the local high school's parking lot, surrounded by four cop cars, after you've decided to meet some guy off the internet to JUST make-out.

Friday, September 28, 2007

I'm not saying that I was not cute before. But when I was weighted at the doctor's office yesterday, I found out that I've lost 40 lbs since this time last year. Also, I've gone from a Womans size 22 to a Womans size 14, and often a regular size XL. And the weird pouch I developed over the summer has disappeared since my gallbladder surgery. And I still got stood up. WTF?

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

It's really interesting to meet someone that you've never seen a picture of in person. I know that people used to do this all the time and that is why it's called a "blind date", but, for my generation, who has, if not completely grown up with the internet, has at least had the internet and digital photography for most of their dating career, truely blind dates are almost unheard of. Even this wasn't a blind date... for him, as I'd sent him two pictures when I first answered his CL ad. He wasn't exactly what I imagined, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing.

I did really enjoy myself. He wasn't lying when he said he was a pretty good conversationalist, though I felt like I dominated a great deal of the conversation. But what else could I do? He kept asking me questions about myself before I could get out questions about him. Though I was pleasantly surprised by how truly interested in me he seemed. It was also the first date, or even the first meeting with someone, where they haven't tried to sleep with me. Then again, I hadn't expected him to from the conversations that we've had. While he seems plenty interested in sex, in this particular situation, he seems more interested in developing a relationship, which will eventually include sex. In some ways, I wasn't even sure he was that physically interested in me. Granted, he was gentlemanly enough to compliment me on my outfit and open doors for me, but there was none of the usual "accidental" touching or "incidental" touching that people usually do to test out the waters, though he sat fairly close to me at the restaurant where we ate dinner. And I figured it was a pretty good sign that he had only signed up for drinks and appetizers, but ended up initiating dinner.

But then he walked me to my car, telling me on the way about how he thought I should go to First Fridays and meet some of his lesbian stripper friends. And he kissed me. The final test of chemistry for me. It was good. Hopefully, a sign of good things to come.

Recently, someone told me that they don't trust themselves with being loved, loved for who they really are and in an unconditional way, because they always manipulate and abuse that love. At the time, that struck such a cord with me. While I think this person meant that they abuse and manipulate in pretty horrible and insidious ways, my past experience has shown me that I manipulate in petty and ridiculous ways, which anyone outside of the situation would easily recognize, usually with the exception of me and the other person.

A few weeks before that I laid next to BT as he fell asleep, I starting thinking about how knowing when the right time to leave a relationship is comparable to the knowing when the right time is to sneak out of bed without waking your partner. (In my case, I had to sneak out of bed partly because of my parents' house rules and partly because I knew I just couldn't sleep.) But any sane person would wonder why I was contemplating leaving this great guy, who makes me feel wanted, safe, cared for, and also COMPLETELY accepted for who I am. Because, even before I heard someone else describe it, I knew that I felt that same way, that I would always abuse and manipulate any true love that was given to me. And I didn't want to do that to this sweet sweet man.

Today was a very VERY bad day. I was ready to give up. BT's prepaid cell phone is out of minutes and he was the only one I couldn't reach by phone. So, I drove the 45 minutes out to the nearby college town where he lives, calling his house and telling them that I would pick him up from work. They said he got off work at 5 or 5:30. At 5:35, I grew tired of waiting for him to come out, so I decided to go in and see if he was ready to be driven home. I knew he'd be surprised and he was. I had come to say goodbye, but I wanted to spend as much time that evening as I could with him. Since our first weekend together, he'd been talking about how he wanted us to really truly date when he got back from his deployment in Iraq. From the beginning, I told him that he'd change his mind once he found out all that I was up to. It was the same discussion tonight, as I told him that he'd probably never want to really date me when he heard about all my extra-curricular activity in the last couple of weeks. As always, he denied that anything I could say would make him not want to date me when he came back.

So I told him about my escapades, which I usually think of as dropping the bomb. But this time it was really his turn to drop the bomb. During these past few weeks when we hadn't really gotten a chance to talk, he said that he'd been doing a great deal of thinking about wanting to date me when he got back. In fact, he was thinking that he wanted to date me BEFORE he left, to start the commitment before he left, something that he had been very much against when I first met him. He didn't want to leave anyone behind when he deployed. But he didn't expect me to stop my current extra-curricular activities. While Mon Parrain and I both questioned how this dating was different than the current situation between BT and I, I suspect that it is just BT's way of showing that he really does want a relationship with me when he come back, that he wants to develop more emotional intimacy with me, and that he would like to come before any other sex partners in my life. I was just blown away. Such a wonderful guy who actually knows me, who I have not lied to about who I am, and he wants me.

Then, I started to freak out. What if I only manipulate and abuse this love that is given to me? In many ways, that is what I did with the Alpha Male of the Pack. Hell, it is what I tried to do to Mon Parrain earlier in the day, even if I wasn't consciously aware of it. But I just can't pass it up. So, starting today, I'm going back to working on making myself "better", getting my meds straightened out and working on...making myself a better version of the self that I want to be.

Monday, September 24, 2007

So, as there are some new people in my life who I hope will be appearing often on this blog so I thought I'd publish another volume of the psuedonym post. The original post is underneath, with a few updates.

The Keeper- A mid-30s professional businessman who I met by responding to his Craigslist post looking for a mistress and "kept woman" who he could help financially in return for having a reliable, intelligent woman he could spend time with. He's not a "sex in a box" yet, but I'm hoping that this relationship develops more.

Boy Toy (BT)- A late-20s Army boy who is shipping off for Iraq soon, but that I'm having great sex with until he does. He lives in the nearby college town in the same communal home as a friend of mine and my uncle's, which is how I met him. He is amazing, sweet, and makes me feel safe and wanted all the time we are together. I just wish I got to see him more. While he's away, I plan to send him lots of care packages.

Stewart- An unhappily married man that I'm have a "sex in a box" relationship with. He's a mid-30s professional businessman as well and I really enjoy how he looks like your average suburban dad/businessman, but has already revealed a little kink. It's just sex, but good sex. And, of course, Stewart isn't his real name, but the name he used when he first contacted me in an unsolicited IM.

Chimera- And last but not least, my long-distance "sub in a box" relationship. He's a 20 year old dad in Ohio who is going to marry the mother of his child soon, but has yet to even really fully explain his desires to be dominated to her. Though their relationship is kinky, it is mostly him fulfilling her desires to be submissive. I met him on a 3D avatar chatting site when he was looking to be the slave of the Alpha Female in the Pack. Thought we started as friends, fellow subs sharing what we desired, I've since come to really enjoy dominating him.

Original PostA friend and regular reader suggested that they have been confused about my psuedonyms for different people so I thought I'd start a psuedonym post that I'll put in the Important Posts section and update as I get more psuedonyms and more people in my life, so that there is an easy index for all readers.

Sir- Sir is my most recent ex-boyfriend. We were together 5 years. His psuedonym of Sir is one that he came up with because, whenever he is out with male friends at restaurants, the waitresses always call his friends "sweetie" and "honey" but they always call him "Sir." We broke up February 2005 and have remained good friends since.

Ex-T- My first real boyfriend when I was 16. He lives in bigger Midwestern city where I travel to see my grandparents. We are still friends and talk quite often. T is his first initial and I was very lazy in coming up with a psuedonym for him.

Ex-J- My second real boyfriend. He was a great guy that I fucked over royally. But I think he has a good life now. Or at least I hope he does. Once again, J is his first initial and I was lazy.

Anna- My good straight male crossdressing friend, who I have developed a "switch in a box" relationship with. Even if we were to stop "playing", we'd still hang out and watch movies, get really drunk, and just have a good time.

Mon Parrain- The name is French for sponsor, godfather, advisor. I wanted to pick something that would fit his initials, MP. He is a "sex in a box", but is also fast becoming a very good friend who is teaching me about myself, my sexuality, and life in general. He has a very complicated life, but is very honest and caring. I hope that soon our relationship will move more towards "dom in a box."

Cassie- She is a friend that I've had for a year or more now. A frenemy tried hooking us up, but nothing really happened so we decided to become friends. I have thought that nothing was happening between us because she didn't like me. On paper we would have been a perfect match, but she never made any ANY move towards me. Turns out she is just painfully shy in the romance department. She recently became a "sex in a box" after I got really flirty with her. **Update: That "sex in the box" didn't last very long as she felt I was taking advantage of her. While I thought I had explained what I was looking for, it obviously didn't really set in. But, despite all that, we are still friends and she has just gotten with a great girl who she's in love with, so I'm happy.

The Pack- This is a family that I have met recently and seem to becoming part of fairly quickly. I answered a CL ad from a couple looking for a third, though they didn't really specify whether they wanted just a third domestically or both domestically and sexually. They offered me sanctuary when I was worried about a guy coming after me and I'm completely taken by them and the life they have to offer. It might just be infatuation, but, right now, I want to be a part of their pack, their beta female. Individually, since I'm not very inventive right now, they are Alpha Male(AM) and Alpha Female(AF), and their two beautiful amazing children are Female Cub(FC) and Male Cub(MC). **Update: This has since blown-up, for many reasons.

And there is one more man in my life, though it hasn't become sex in a box...yet. (I'm keeping my fingers crossed.) A few weeks ago, I answered a CL ad for a man looking for woman interested in being a "kept woman". He's a successful and attractive business man looking for a woman to help financially in return for great conversation and, eventually, great sex when he has time in his busy schedule. In all actuality, I thought I never had a chance. But he responded quickly and we've been exchanging e-mails, about one or two a day, ever since. We mostly talk about everyday things, the basic get-to-know you stuff, with just the right amount of flirting. I'm very excited to meet him. In fact, we were supposed to meet for drinks last Friday, but, once he heard about my surgery, the gentleman that he is, he insisted that we put our meeting off until this Wednesday, when I would be feeling better. And, as he seems to really like a more alternative/goth look, I have been planning my outfit for this date all weekend. Last night, I invited him to read my blog, informing him of how everyone gets a psuedonym, and promising that I would blog about him. So, here is his blog post. Last night, I was trying to come up with a psuedonym for him, something that would be complimentary to "kept woman". He liked Keeper, so it's stuck. I'm sure I'll be writing more about him in the future.

I think I have an abnormally high sex drive. This combined with the fact that I am not too particular about the things most women are when it comes to men (like being married or taken, like the possibility of having a future monogamous romantic relationship, like the possibility of falling in love) means that I have some new "sex in a box" partners. They are very fun but very different. And, of course, I have some new psuedonyms.

The first one I met is Chimera. I met him through the Pack. I helped the Female Alpha interview him as a new possible slave for her on a 3d avatar chat program where they take these kind of relationships very seriously. Unlike the other possible slaves that I had interviewed previously, this young man (20) was very thoughtful and also showed a great deal of potential as a submissive. Outside of talking with him with the rest of the pack, he and I spend a great deal of time away from the Pack. We became quite friendly, as two subs talking about what we wanted out of a dominant. I also learned about his real life situation. He has a beautiful daughter and he is plannning on marrying her mother in the next year or so. While he and his fiancee are kinky in bed, she is a sub and, while he tries hard to fulfill what she desires, she seems to get turned off by what he wants, though she has tried a few times to humor him, though she feels weird afterwards. Unfortunately, I met him right before things disintegrated with the Pack and I didn't want him to risk losing his first chances at having a mistress, albeit only online, by talking to me, if the Female Alpha had a problem with it. As I didn't hear from him for weeks, I assumed that is what happened. But then, a few weeks ago, we started talking again. It seems like he had just become disillusioned by the whole situation because the Female Alpha was not online enough and did not give him the amount of instructions he was hoping for. At first, we were just talking as friends, but within a few days, I found myself taking on the role of a domme for him. It has been rather fun though it was recently been pointed out to me that I haven't been quite as dominant as I should be and that I've been letting his top from the bottom, so I started yesterday being a more demanding, less-playful domme. Unfortunately, Chimera lives in Ohio so all of my domming is being handled long-distance, despite how much I'd like for there to be some kind of sex in the real world.

My other latest "sex in the box" is with Stewart. Or at least that is how he introduced himself when he sent me a random, unsolicited IM last week. Of course, during our first conversation, as all men do, he claimed not to be married or taken, but he was interesting and nice and didn't mention wanting sex right away, so, contrary to what I usually do, which is just block any unsolicited IMs, I continued to talk to him. I saw him on his webcam and I sent him some pics of me. We met up on Wednesday, as I suspected, Stewart wasn't his real name and he is unhappily married. But we had a good lunch with a great conversation and the sex was pretty good, so we are continuing with that as well. Despite the fact that he looks like your average suburban dad and business man and that the sex was pretty vanilla at first, he started to reveal some of his kink today. I really love getting with men who look straight-laced, but are just hiding that they are as strange as I look.

Unfortunately, I don't have any boxes with women. There is a very good reason for this. I do not want to fall in love but I do want sex. I can easily have this with men. And it is actually so much easier to have sex without a risk of your partner wanting a relationship or falling in love if they are already taken. But I couldn't really do with a woman. I have too much respect for women to use them as I do men. And I'd have to play the "I really do want a relationship" game with women, when I know I really don't. Plus, I've found that I can be honest with men about how I feel about sex and relationships and my kinks, whereas I've found that most women don't react well to finding out how I truly feel about those things.

I've also noticed a trend that happens when I'm feeling better, more confident, less needy. I seem to be much more confident and less needy when I'm actually getting sex already, which used to entail being in a relationship. This confidence and un-neediness seems to attract other people, especially men. So, right now, I seem to be collecting men, like poor stray puppies who show up at my door and I just can't seem to turn any of them away. But I'm still not getting enough sex!

Sunday, September 23, 2007

Have you ever thought about how many songs there are about Sunday mornings? I will grant you that I'm not sure if there are more song that mention Monday mornings or Sunday mornings, but I'm pretty sure that they are neck and neck. And I can't think of a single song about Thursday mornings. Also, the songs that mention Sunday mornings usually include that in the title: "Sunday Morning Coming Down" by Johnny Cash, different songs all called "Sunday Morning" by Velvet Underground, Acid Kings, Lily Allen, No Doubt, and, the one that I'm hearing in my head right now, Maroon 5. (Oh, and another good Sunday song, though morning isn't in the title, is Keith Urban's "Pray That It's Raining on Sunday".) So, here's the song I'll no doubt have stuck in my head all day.

Sunday Morning- Maroon 5Sunday morning rain is fallingSteal some covers share some skinClouds are shrouding us in moments unforgettableYou twist to fit the mold that I am in

But things just get so crazy living life gets hard to doAnd I would gladly hit the road get up and go if I knewThat someday it would bring me back to youThat someday it would bring me back to you

That may be all I needIn darkness she is all I seeCome and rest your bones with meDriving slow on sunday morningAnd I never want to leave

Fingers trace your every outlinePaint a picture with my handsBack and forth we sway like branches in a stormChange the weather still together when it ends

That may be all I needIn darkness she is all I seeCome and rest your bones with meDriving slow on sunday morningAnd I never want to leave

But things just get so crazy living life gets hard to doSunday morning rain is falling and Im calling out to youSinging someday itll bring me back to youFind a way to bring myself home to youAnd you may not knowThat may be all I needIn darkness she is all I seeCome and rest your bones with meDriving slow?http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Xvl5NIYRMo

**A later thought: Actually listening to this song in the car this afternoon, when I heard the lines "And I would gladly hit the road get up and go if I knew/That someday it would bring me back to you", I realized how true that is for why I so often stay where I am at. Because there is at least on person that I fear losing if I do go. Hmmm. Food for thought.

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

So I’m sure you all have missed me for the past month or so and have been dying to know about what I’ve been doing. Unfortunately, most of it hasn’t been that exciting. The greater part of that time has been spent in bed, being depressed. The highlights of those periods have mostly been my panicky suicidal moments and my moments of extreme physical pain, which I thought were digestive/stomach issues, perhaps a hiatal hernia like my mom and uncle have.

Of course there have been romantic/sexual ups and downs. I started what I thought would be a nice “sex in a box” relationship with a shy lesbian female friend of mine, thinking I made my lack of intentions clear, only to find that I hadn’t, that I had made her feel used, and that I’m apparently treating sex “like a man does.” (Thanks Mon Parrain.) I was very sorry about the way it ended and in hurting her, though we are still friends and she has found a great new girlfriend just recently, for which I’m very happy because she does deserve a good girlfriend. I just thought I could be around to fuck until she found that.

I fell hard and fast for a whole family who live 2.5 hours away only to find that, once the depression set in again, my overwhelming desire to lose myself in what they wanted and needed was almost just as self-destructive as my only other desire at that time, to end my own life. So, as much as I hated doing it and being a complete coward about it, I begged Mon Parrain into getting me out of the situation before I did more harm to myself. He hated having to step in the way he did also because he never wanted to dictate my life, or any one’s life, but, as he felt I was a grave danger to myself, he did it. While I may not have agreed with his methods, he did do what I asked of him in the best way possible.

But of course my romantic life hasn’t been all doom and gloom. I spent a wonderful weekend with a wonderful young man who seemed to accept all my weirdness, has plenty of his own, and has made it his goal when we are together to make me laugh and smile. Also, seemingly without any special effort, he makes me feel safe and wanted when I am with him, hell, even sometimes when I am not with him, and that is a very rare thing. Initially, he started out as a conquest. This cute, slender but muscular army boy who was a friend of a friend and the only straight boy in a tiny bar full of only gay men. Though I got his number and we kissed, I was sure he’d forget about me as soon as he returned to the nearby college town where he lives and sobered up. I waited 3 days to call him. The first thing he asked me when I called though was when I was going to come kidnap him for a weekend with me in the Big City. As he looks much younger than he is and also younger than I am, I spent the weeks in between our first meeting and the first weekend we both had free for me to kidnap him, I took to calling him Boy Toy (BT) to all my friends. That will forever be his pseudonym on this blog as well. But what I thought would be a casual weekend of fucking became something more. I knew early on I was in trouble. He is a huge Buffy fan and on our way out to this posh shopping mall, we listened to the Buffy musical soundtrack. It was all over when he fulfilled my secret wish to sing “I’ll Never Tell” as the duet it is in the episode, with me as Anya and him as Xander. But there’s always a catch right? He deploys for Iraq in January and will be spending months before that at the mobilization site, getting ready to deploy. So, I’m trying to look forward to a year (or more) of sending him cartons of Newports, DVDs I think he’ll like, pictures of me, and loving letters. He says he wants to try to date exclusively as soon as he comes back. I guess we’ll have to see if he still feels that way when he returns and if I think I can be faithful then. But he’s such a sweet guy, there are times when I want to run because I fear hurting him. When I expressed this to Mon Parrain, he had a wonderful comeback. “Ava, you have the most perfect opportunity to leave the campsite better than you found it here. You can give this guy, who you really do like, a great time before he leaves and, then, with very little effort on your part, you can greatly improve his experience over there with your care packages and letters and constant reminders of his home, of all the love people back in the States have for him.. Even if nothing comes of the two of you when he returns, you will have been able to make his life that much better while he’s gone.” Considering how much BT has helped make me feel better, it warms my heart to think that I might be able to return the favor.

Another plus in this crazy time is that I’ve realized the amazing friend that I have in Mon Parrain. He is the one who did the dirty work with the family I loved despite his distaste for having to take over any aspect of my life. He has kept in almost constant contact with me despite a demanding work schedule and preparing for and having a baby during this period. When I was at my lowest point, it was really his genuine worry and fear for my safety that make me seek out a more intensive treatment option, though that didn’t work out quite as either of us had planned. They put me on a 72 hour voluntary hold when all I really wanted was to try to switch my meds, see the prescribing doctor more regularly so that if something went wrong I didn’t have to wait months to get it fixed, and perhaps go into an outpatient program. But it was his encouragement that made me stick to being there, to participating in the groups, and to aggressively seeking out the treatment I knew I needed. He also made dozens of fruitless calls to try to talk to me, despite the anarchic phone system. He continuously worked to make me laugh and also pushed me to get back to my writing, especially this story that I’ve been working on in my head since the summer because it intrigues him so much. Several times recently he’s told me that he thinks what makes our relationship so special, at least for him, is that he finally feels like he’s found someone he doesn’t have to lie to, that he can tell me anything and I won’t run away or be disgusted. I’m also smart enough to know what things are said in confidence and what things aren’t, without having to be specifically told. And, in all actuality, I’m not usually shocked by most of what he says. And I’ve found that in him as well. Though he seems to think that I can be the person that no one has to lie to for everyone, few have taken that offer. In talking about other lovers who’s honesty I’m questioning, he’s often said, “But s/he does know that you are the ONE person that s/he doesn’t have to lie to, right?” Apparently, only Mon Parrain feels that way about me, but I’m working hard to make it more universal.

But the biggest, most dramatic think to happen to me was---SURGERY. The short of the story is that I got surgery to have my gallbladder removed last Saturday and it seems to have taken care of all of my stomach problems and my acid reflux issues. Now, for the longer version: Until this semester, I did not have health insurance. A few weeks ago I started the tedious process of student health clinic visits and referral visits, etc, but nothing really happened until I went to the emergency room late Thursday night. While I was in the hospital for my depression, the generalized pain around my ribs had gotten worse and worse, but they weren’t equipped to help me. They also chalked it up to either being a hypochondriac or anxiety. Once in the ER, the doctor pushed on my stomach and the only part that drew howls of pain was when he pushed just below my right ribs. He referred me to get an ultrasound in the morning because they didn’t have a tech on duty that late at night. Friday, instead of getting the ultrasound, my mom and I spent the whole day trying to convince the student health clinic to give us a referral for the ultrasound (which was required by the health insurance company), while I lay at home in bed, writhing in pain, despite the lovely drugs they gave me. Fortunately, one of the ultrasound techs took pity on me and agreed to make an early morning appointment for Saturday, but that meant no food, drink, or drugs after midnight the night before. I was in serious pain by the time I got there Saturday morning for the ultrasound, but he was quick about it and I read his diagnosis over his shoulder. “Gall stones. Thickening of the gallbladder wall.”

Now, my mother had warned me that usually, even if it is a problem with your gallbladder, you have to wait weeks or even months to schedule a surgery. Not me. The tech took us to the ER, so it must have looked pretty bad. When the ER doctor came gave me a choice between surgery today or…well, I don’t really know what the other choice was because I told him to cut me open then and take care of it.

So Saturday I had laproscopic surgery to have my gallbladder removed. I went home Sunday afternoon. The surgeon said that I would have gone home Saturday but there was some drainage he was worried about, so he kept me overnight. There are two small incisions just below my ribs, one larger spot where the drain was, and my belly button is kinda messed up and bruised (because that’s where they pulled out my gallbladder) I’m sore, though less with each day, and I have to hold my stomach when I laugh or cough or sneeze. But this surgery has made me feel 100x better.

As soon as the surgery was over, I noticed that the weird pouchy roll that I’d developed around my middle during the past few months was suddenly gone. And I doubt they did any free liposuction so it must have just been swelling and bloating that never went away until the gallbladder did. The deep dark circles under my eyes that wouldn’t go away no matter how much sleep I got were also gone. So was the weird acne that had been plaguing me all summer. Even the acid reflux seems to have gone away. I never would have guessed that an organ you can just as easily live without and that you can take out so easily could cause so many problems for so long. In fact, I’m beginning to wonder if a great deal of my very recent depression and suicidal-ness was not due in some part to the toxicity my body was no doubt experiencing from my mal-functioning gallbladder and/or my body’s inability to properly process my meds. I guess I’ll never know.

What I do know is that I feel so much better. As much as my still recovering body will allow, I plan on getting back to my life, making right things I let go when I was depressed, getting things back on track, and, hopefully, getting ready to return to school next semester. Unfortunately, I was so stuck in my depression that I chose not to go to class or work so I’ve ruined this semester of school and lost my amazing job. But there’s always next semester and I might be able to grovel, re-apply, and get my job back next semester as well.

So look forward to hering more from me. Sorry for the extended absence.

Friday, August 10, 2007

Back dated to when it was written. Sorry, I've been negligent in posting.

The house should be creepy to me. Well, it kinda is anyway. The stones holding in the yard are old, beginning to crumble. The stone steps don't lead to the front door. Instead they leave you facing a part of the side porch enclosed by a banister. I have to navigate the small sidewalk, which is being overtaken by the unkempt yard, duck under low-hanging trees to get to the stairs up to the porch. The top step on the porch is rotting away, making the last step rather precarious. A skeleton sits in a rocking chair ten feet to my right on the wrap-around porch, perhaps a Halloween joke left out until the next August? Spiders and their intricate webs have taken over the area between the flannel-shirted skeleton and I.

I knock on the front door but no one answers. The thin pain of glass that makes up the top half of the door makes me nervous. It doesn't seeem like a very secure barrier, a very strong deterant to would-be theifs. Then again, I can clearly see the intricate swords and knives hanging decoratively on the wall opposite the door. Maybe those are the real deterants.I knock a second and third time before a jovial face appears in the door opposite the front door. Though this is the first time I've seen this face in person, a disjointed film plays in the back of my head, of all the times before I've seen him. I never really believed in past lives. But a movie plays in my mind, centuries spanned in which I've known this same man, seen this same face, in rage, in battle, in tenderness. The door is opened and I am immediately embraced, the prodigal finally coming home. I relax into the bear of an embrace, into this stranger I have known a thousand times before.

The inside of the house is dim, but warm and inviting. Chaoting in the way that only two infants can create. With few words, I am hustled to the shower, already running for me, so that i can wash off the dirt and sweat from my long journey. As he guides me through the house, I can hear her singing in some close room. A melodic soprano voice singing, "Hey, way, I've got a new complaint." It's the sweetest Nirvana cover I've ever heard. She brings me a set of her won clothes to change into after my shower, for we are almost the same size, and a big hug, overjoyed that I am finally here.

Can someplace be home the first time you've been there?

Alone in the shower, cluttered with a million different kinds of shampooes and conditioners and body washes, I can still hear the household running around me. the joyous cries and laughter of the two infants, the constant movement of their parents. The scalding water rinses away all my fears and doubts about coming here as well as the fears that drove me to seek sanctuary with strangers. I am suddenly, strangely, unencumbered.

Once clean and in fresh clothing, I sit with the rest of the pack on their new tan couch. The older of the two children, a usually cautious female cub, takes my hand and asks me to watch cartoons with her. Her mother tries to hide her shock. As three year old humans are known to do, the little girl climbs all over me and the couch, igoring all modesty as her dress shifts, exposing her small body. She is also a never ending stream of questions and comments. Unfortunately, I have not yet mastered the language of three year olds.

Wednesday, August 08, 2007

A friend and regular reader suggested that they have been confused about my psuedonyms for different people so I thought I'd start a psuedonym post that I'll put in the Important Posts section and update as I get more psuedonyms and more people in my life, so that there is an easy index for all readers.

Sir- Sir is my most recent ex-boyfriend. We were together 5 years. His psuedonym of Sir is one that he came up with because, whenever he is out with male friends at restaurants, the waitresses always call his friends "sweetie" and "honey" but they always call him "Sir." We broke up February 2005 and have remained good friends since.

Ex-T- My first real boyfriend when I was 16. He lives in bigger Midwestern city where I travel to see my grandparents. We are still friends and talk quite often. T is his first initial and I was very lazy in coming up with a psuedonym for him.

Ex-J- My second real boyfriend. He was a great guy that I fucked over royally. But I think he has a good life now. Or at least I hope he does. Once again, J is his first initial and I was lazy.

Anna- My good straight male crossdressing friend, who I have developed a "switch in a box" relationship with. Even if we were to stop "playing", we'd still hang out and watch movies, get really drunk, and just have a good time.

Mon Parrain- The name is French for sponsor, godfather, advisor. I wanted to pick something that would fit his initials, MP. He is a "sex in a box", but is also fast becoming a very good friend who is teaching me about myself, my sexuality, and life in general. He has a very complicated life, but is very honest and caring. I hope that soon our relationship will move more towards "dom in a box."

Cassie- She is a friend that I've had for a year or more now. A frenemy tried hooking us up, but nothing really happened so we decided to become friends. I have thought that nothing was happening between us because she didn't like me. On paper we would have been a perfect match, but she never made any ANY move towards me. Turns out she is just painfully shy in the romance department. She recently became a "sex in a box" after I got really flirty with her.

The Pack- This is a family that I have met recently and seem to becoming part of fairly quickly. I answered a CL ad from a couple looking for a third, though they didn't really specify whether they wanted just a third domestically or both domestically and sexually. They offered me sanctuary when I was worried about a guy coming after me and I'm completely taken by them and the life they have to offer. It might just be infatuation, but, right now, I want to be a part of their pack, their beta female. Individually, since I'm not very inventive right now, they are Alpha Male(AM) and Alpha Female(AF), and their two beautiful amazing children are Female Cub(FC) and Male Cub(MC).

Friday, August 03, 2007

This is a post that I should have written last week, or at least sometime this past weekend, but there has just been too much drama (bad men, as usual) and too much readjusting to being back in my old life, my real life, that I haven’t done much of anything that didn’t need to be done right away.

While I always knew that the time I spent at my grandmother’s house was not my real life, it was still hard to come home. Maybe because I’ve moved so much, it doesn’t take me long to feel like something has become “old hat”, has become routine and normal. Part of me really felt like I’d never come back to my real home. Coming back to my real home was quite a culture shock.

Two weeks ago today, I got home at 1am. Most weary travelers would just slink into bed. Not me. I had to unpack. Everything. Since all my clothes smelled like cigarette smoke (because my grandma smokes), I had to wash them all, so three loads of laundry. I had to unpack all the books and shoes and cds and dvds that I had brought. I also had to clean up cat puke (hairballs) and vacuum. I finally settled down about 5am, watching Angel as I laid on the futon. (Strangely enough though, my overnight bag from last weekend is still partially packed. Go figure.)

That’s when something strange happened. My step-father comes downstairs to use downstairs bathroom to shower every morning sometime between 5am and 6am. He’s usually fairly grumpy, especially when I’m still awake when he comes downstairs. But that first morning home, despite his usual morning gruffness, he said, “It’s good to have you home, girl.” While I know that might not sound like anything special to some people, it is quite huge between us.

Then, last week, my step-father enlisted my help in one of his side projects. He was about to stain some pieces of wood, when he asked if I wanted to help. Basically, unlike when Sir helps his dad by standing there and/or holding a flashlight, helping my step-father means that he shows me how to do something once and lets me do the rest, interjecting here and there to tell me when I’m doing something the wrong way. It’s kinda been this way for as long as I can remember. When my parents married, my step-father already owned a rental house. Every time someone moved out of the house, we had to do some kind of work before we could rent it again. I was always enlisted to help with anything I could physically do. I painted, a lot, but I also mudding walls after the new drywall was put up. But, as he liked the job I did last week and knew that I am very broke until my new job starts in a few weeks, he asked me if I’d like to help him on another job where he could use an extra set of hands, essentially demolishing a bathroom and carrying away the pieces before he completely remodeled it. While the project has been put off several times, I am still excited about helping him. While I was staining and he was calibrating a saw, we actually had a conversation. He told me that I would inherit a lot of tools when he died. I replied, “My friend, Mon Parrain, once told me that, when he meets a female friend who mistakes lust for love too many times, he buys them a dog, a vibrator, and some power tools.” My step-father’s response: “Why does he buy them power tools?” (Completely glossed over the vibrator.) “So they can do all their own handy-work and doesn’t need a man around to do it for them.” “Oh,” he replied, “Well, that makes sense. You women don’t need us. Anything we can do, you can do. Usually do better too.” (Seriously, not a word or reaction to the vibrator part!!!!)

Another interesting development in my relationship between my step-father and myself has come from things my mother has told me about the time I was gone. My step-father apparently wanted me to come home from my grandmother’s house quite a bit sooner than I ended up coming back. Every time my mother would tell him about my grandmother’s newest crazy, he would demand that I should come back home. Eventually, she stopped telling him things because he would get so upset about what he saw as my grandmother mistreating me, using me for her own purposes and to deal with her own turmoil, instead of the both of us working hard to help my grandfather get better. He was essentially afraid that my grandmother was quickly driving me crazy. Which she was, but that didn’t really mean I was ready or willing to leave yet. Also, for my birthday, my parents had promised me a new stereo for my room. But my birthday weekend was the beginning of my time at my grandparents’ house and smack-dab in the middle of the time my mother took off work to take care of my uncle, which meant our family had less money than usual, so we all decided that I would wait for my big present until I came back from helping my grandparents. My mom and I ended up going to buy it last Tuesday, though she told me that the only reason she really rushed me to go pick it out and pick it up was that my step-dad kept mentioning how I still didn’t have my stereo. He was much more worried about it than I was, apparently.

But I think that all of this bodes well for he and I maybe getting along better in the future. Especially after I start working a real job again, which is a huge thing for him. He’s kinda old school in thinking that everyone should be working all the time, paying all their bills themselves. Not that I don’t understand that, but I also understand that there have been times I have just been unable to work, unable to do anything quite frankly, because of severe depression.

My mother understands this a little bit better. Or at least she puts up with it without ever complaining. Until I spent so much time living under my grandmother’s stifling rule, I never realized just how much space my mother gives me here. On the other hand, that doesn’t mean that she isn’t concerned. When I am having a spell of depression or just a down day, she’ll check up on me, but she never presses, never acts like it’s my fault that I can’t seem to drag my ass out of bed. But she also has a keen sense of intuition and knows when to press for more or ask just the right question.

But while I revel in these new discoveries and pleasant events, I would never have realized how great it was here, back at home, without the time I spent not here, which, while not all bad, was more stressful than I had anticipated. So, despite how lax I have been lately, I’m grateful to be home.

Sunday, July 29, 2007

I don't even feel the need to honor you with a psuedonym like I do my other lovers who I want to protect, my other lovers who respect me enough to either be my friends or say they can't also be my friends and my lover, my other lovers who knew getting into this that they weren't getting a commitment from me though I would always be safe and protect their safety as well, my other lovers who would not put in the position you have. I loved this song when I first heard it weeks ago and I now I realize that I won't do the equivalent, no matter how much I want you, as my lover, as my friend, even as bad as I've wanted for over a year to be your significant other. I won't give up the life I have, the life I want, the life I built, just because you ask for it, just because you say it is making or breaking this, especially when your heart in nowhere in it.Love Song - Sara BareillesHead under waterand they tell me to breathe easy for a whilethe breathing gets harder, even I know thatyou made room for me but it's too soon to seeif I'm happy in your handsI'm unusually hard to hold on toBlank stares at blank pagesno easy way to say thisyou mean well, but you make this hard on me

I'm not gonna write you a love song'cause you asked for it'cause you need one, you seeI'm not gonna write you a love song'cause you tell me it'smake or breaking thisif you're on your wayI'm not gonna write you to stayIf all you have is leaving I'm gonna need a betterreason to write you a love song today

I learned the hard waythat they all say things you want to hearand my heavy heart sinks deep down under you andyour twisted words,your help just hurtsyou are not what I thought you werehello to high and dryConvinced me to please youmade me think that I need this tooI'm trying to let you hear me as I am

I'm not gonna write you a love song'cause you asked for it'cause you need one, you seeI'm not gonna write you a love song'cause you tell me it'smake or breaking thisif you're on your wayI'm not gonna write you to stayIf all you have is leavingI'm gonna need a betterreason to write you a love song today

Promise me that you'll leave the light onto help me see with daylight, my guide, gone'cause I believe there's a way you can love mebecause I say

I won't write you a love song'cause you asked for it'cause you need one, you seeI'm not gonna write you a love song'cause you tell me it's make or breaking thisis that why you wanted a love song'cause you asked for it'cause you need one, you seeI'm not gonna write you a love song'cause you tell me it's make or breaking thisif you're on your wayI'm not gonna write you to stayif your heart is nowhere in itI don't want it for a minuteBabe, I'll walk the seven seas when I believe thatthere's a reason towrite you a love song today

Monday, July 16, 2007

Conversation had Saturday night on the way back from the concertMe: So I had sex with ex-T Wednesday. It seems I managed to catch him at a time between girlfriends, so we kissed and had sex, the whole nine. Not just him teasing me until I acquiesced to a blow job.Sir: (Silence)Me: Why is that some guys think that blow jobs and hand jobs aren't cheating?Sir: Because some guys are assholes.Me: You mean none of your male friends think that getting a blow job isn't cheating?Sir: No. Not that I'm aware of. But then again I don't hang out with assholes.Me: It seems to me that it is, in large part, relegated to men that are our age or younger, of our socio-economic level who haven't gone to college or tried to rise much above this economic leave or get out of their hometown. (Long silence. Both thinking.)Sir: There is another, less pretty way of saying all that you just said, but it'll probably make you mad if I say it.Me: (eyebrows scrunched) What?Sir: Poor people do stupid things.So I have always been kinda curious about how people, which I've usually found to be male, can construct their ideas of what is or isn't cheating for them in what seems to be a rather arbitrary way. It is even worse in my opinion that they don't usually share these ideas with their partners and that they also have different rules for what is cheating when it comes to their partners. I suppose this especially bothers me in regards to ex-T, who has said he'd never get back with me because I cheated on him, which would be perfectly valid and understandable if he wasn't perfectly happy getting blow jobs from women other than his girlfriend. While I must admit to actually knowing few people personally who feel this way, or at least few who will admit it to me, but it does seem to be a popular cultural notion. Of course, just because it's something that TV shows and the MSM present as the cultural norm doesn't mean that is the case. But what's really been bugging me since this conversation is the class-based assumptions both Sir and I were making. Later, I did tell him that it also seems to be a popularly presented social norm among higher-educated, upwardly-mobile, exec-wannabe-type guys, but that I would assume has more to do with a sense of both male and economic privilege than anything else, whereas I'm not sure where it stems from with men like ex-T.This sense of my (largely) unquestioned classism came back to me last night as I was reading Sex & the Slayer: A Gender Studies Primer for the Buffy Fan by Lorna Jowett. In her chapter "New Men", centering on men in Buffy who are neither typical tough guys nor vamps but are trying for some ideal of the New Man, she touches on the way in which middle-class society, typically the people that are making television shows and for whom television shows are made, attribute sexuality, or at least a certain type of sexuality to the working class. (Let's leave aside issues of race and the stereotypical ways in which white society attributes a certain type of sexuality to other races because that is a whole section in the library right there.) The two main characters that get the most thorough treatment in this chapter are Giles and Xander. When discussing Giles, Jowett says that, in addition to being a male authority figure and a financial provider, "Giles displays other traditionally masculine characteristics- aggressive sexuality and physical violence- though these are often displaced onto his alter ego, Ripper.(129)" Ripper is a hold-over from Rupert Giles 20-something days as a university dropout who meddled in dark magic. But when Giles is Ripper, he loses the glasses, dresses like a 50's rebel, and takes on a "(rather exaggerated) generic southern English working-class 'accent'.(129)" Jowett uses Ripper and several other bad boy characters to argue that these characters link "a certain type of masculinity with certain types of men: middle class men may be new men, but working-class men are real men. (130)" Jowett goes on to demonstrate how Giles sexual prowess is proved through his relationships with Jenny Calendar, his black UK lover Olivia, and Joyce Summers, Buffy's mom, who he has sex with as Ripper. It seems that Giles can only truly express these more "base" traditionally masculine behaviors through a working-class alter ego.This becomes even more apparent in Jowett's discussion of Xander, the only member of the Scoobie gang who is clearly not from a middle-class background. Shown from the start of the show to be a self-deprecating dork with no supernatural powers or special skills who does not go on to college with the rest of the Scoobie gang, Xander still serves as the "Heart" of the Combo-Buffy formed by the group to defeat Adam, the Big Bad of Season 4. Jowett writes, "But as I see it the real problem with Xander's representation as a new man is sexuality....Sexual prowess is again called on to demonstrate that a new man is in fact a real man. Xander's uninhibited (hetero)sexuality can be read as another trait attributed to the working class by the middle class.(136)" The more I thought about what Jowett seems to be saying about class and sexuality, as it is presented in popular culture and popular mores, the more it rang true to me that the middle class environments that I grew up within, including my family, my high school, my popular culture of movies/TV/music, present virile, unbounded, aggressive, non-monogamous sexualities as (stereo)typical of working class people. In middle class or upper class peoples, these sexualities are deviant, often signs of some other inner corruption. Though I am fascinated by postmodern thought and identity politics/philosophy, I am realizing that I've spent so much time focused on feminist and LGBT identity philosophies that I've neglected masculine studies and class issues (not to mention race issues). Ok, so what is the point of this whole long 'essay'? Mostly, that I'm still acting out assumptions that I have from my upbringing about not only sexuality and race, but also class and how I've been taught to assume they all work together. Obviously, from Sir's response, I'm not the only one, but I do think this is something that I've never really thought that in depth about and that I'd like to explore further. Does it really boil down to working class men having such unstoppable sex drives and low morals that they will then construct their personal sexual moralities to allow for that? Or is that just a horrible horrible example of me stereotyping based on one guy and crappy things that I hear people say about guys? I guess I'm just putting it out there.

First off, I'd like to put on this the caveat that this term might be something I heard somewhere from someone else, or on TV, so I'm not claiming to be original. I'm also not claiming that this is a very good metaphor for what I'm trying to do, but it seems to be sticking with me, and it's fun to say, so I thought I'd post on it to let everyone in on the new phrase I'll be using rather frequently.

So, in a previous post, I talked about my evolving ideas on "casual sex". The more I think about it, the more I know I don't really want any one-night stands necessarily. If I met someone I really was attracted to but who either didn't want to date me or who I didn't want to date but that I did have the opportunity to have sex with, I'm not sure I'd pass it up. But DATING for me right now is a very open proposition. The way I've been thinking about DATING is that it is SEX IN A BOX.

Definition Time. SEX IN A BOX: This is a mutually beneficial sexual (and probably platonic) relationship that is non-monogamous, non-exclusive, open, honest, safe, and sane, with both partners being in agreement to the terms and conditions of the arrangement. Part of the box is the rules and expectations that each person has/needs for the relationship to work. This includes how much, or how little contact each partner expects to still feel secure and not used, how affectionate and couple-like the people will act in public (and, I suppose, in private as well), and what feelings/emotions/actions keep the SEX IN A BOX from being a full-blown exclusive romantic long-term relationship. The other part of the box is that (optimally) the relationship can easily be contained, sex aside, put up on the shelf, when one partner needs to because other obligations (family, job, school) need all of that person's attention, but without the other partner feeling like they are being betrayed or neglected. Also, the other partner is not obligated to take on the burden of their partner, as they would in monogamous romantic relationship. Obviously, I feel like I would treat everyone and anyone that I had this kind of a relationship with as I would treat any friend- helping when requested and as possible, "from each according to their ability and to each according to their need". These people are/should be people that I respect, care for, even perhaps love or am in love with. I just don't require, or even want, sole right to their body, romantic attention, and love, just as I do not want to grand them sole rights to my body, romantic attention, and love. I also know that I personally can't afford to love myself to a long-term relationship.

I know this sounds a great deal like FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS. Maybe. But I've usually found that FWB is either a nice term to cover up having casual sex with someone or a nice term to cover up the fact that you are having sex with someone you would really like to be in a long-term romantic relationship with, but you can't them to agree to it. Also, I am trying to construct a more open and honest way of dealing with having non-monogamous multiple sexual relationships that are clearly defined and arranged so that it is easier to navigate them.

But this also leads me to further thoughts on what I define as sex. When relating my escapades to Mon Parrain upon his return from a business trip, I told him that I'd had sex with two people and fooled around with two others. But when I went on to describe these encounters he, very astutely, challenged my hetrocentric views of what qualifies as sex with whom.Mon Parrain: So when you were with the woman, what was just oral sex and digital penetration, you call that sex, right?Me: Right....Mon Parrain: But the only time you call it sex, when you're wiht a man, is when there's intercourse....?Me: Mmmm, I see what you are getting at.Mon Parrain: It seems a rather hetrosexist, penis-vagina penetration-oriented way to view sex.Me: (Pause) Yeah, my good friend Miss Kee has pointed this out to me once or twice as well.Mon Parrain: Here is how I define sex. I call it sex if either both people have all their clothes off at the same time and/or if there is oral sex. If neither of these things happen, then it is just fooling around.Me: (Pause) Ok, so I've had sex with four people since you.Mon Parrain: Well, I didn't get a chance to have sex while I was gone but I'm glad one of us did.

Of course, not every date I go on will lead to sex and not every romantic dating encounter will lead to SEX IN A BOX. Even if I clicked with that person, many people want long-term relationships or at least require exclusivity and monogamy. While I think a SEX IN A BOX relationship could be long-term, it doesn't necessarily have to be (and I suppose it depends on what your definition of long-term is as well), but it obviously won't be exclusive or monogamous, unless just by default, because I or one of my partners can't find or doesn't want another partner. Plus, I don't want too many boxes. I can barely handle have half a dozen friends and a dozen or so acquaintances at one time. Maybe that's why I like that one SEX IN A BOX lives close enough to visit regularly but not in my homecity and a potential DOM IN A BOX lives very far away but visits my homecity on business. Well, we'll see how this little experiment of mine works out.